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First, but not really.
So maybe it was less an act out of the goodness of his heart and moreso meant to stop Luffy from giving him puppy eyes, but he still appreciates it when Zoro gives him his lunch.
“Zoro! You’re the best, I love you!” He’d said it before. He’d say it again. It’s true, why shouldn’t he?
But Zoro pauses, breath audibly catching in his throat.
He coughs to cover it up. “Yeah, I guess, ask Shitji for more next time.”
Over the years, Zoro has gotten a sixth sense for when he’s going to pounce on him. It triggers within an instant, and his hand preemptively shoots out against Luffy’s face to keep him at arm’s length.
Foolish. While Zoro was taller Luffy’s arms were Unlimited .
It only takes a second for Luffy to have him in a headlock.
His hand presses harder against Luffy’s cheek. His palm happens to drift slightly over Luffy's mouth, a rookie mistake, and Luffy licks it as wetly as his salivary glands can manage.
Zoro makes a weird noise in his throat that Luffy’s pretty sure humans shouldn’t be able to make and he cackles at the sound.
The laughter quickly turns into pitiful whining when Zoro’s wet, slimy, slobbered-on hand is wiped off against his cheek
“Eww! Zoro, gross!”
Zoro growls, futilely attempting to pry Luffy’s arms off of him. “You started it, you brat-- Ow- Luffy! Don’t bite me!”
“Iw’ll bithe youw iff I wanh,” Luffy responds petulantly through his mouthful of fingers.
The fight needs to be broken up by Nami in the end, who sends Zoro off to do who knows what in the bowels of the ship and puts Luffy on crow’s nest duty.
“Oi! Zoro! You got a fever? You look a little red,” he shouts just before Zoro descends below deck
He collapses in laughter at the distinctive thunk of a head hitting a door frame.
Again
“Why are you here? It’s got to be boring, just… watching me.”
Despite his own strength, it was still a bit mesmerizing to watch Zoro lift weights. There was easily, uh, a lot -- look he wasn’t good with numbers, he had other people on the crew who could do math for him -- on the bar, but he moved like there was nothing in his hands. It was like a magic trick, except there was no magic. Zoro was just that cool.
“I like watching you.” He says without consideration, without hesitation, unashamedly. “I like talking to Zoro. I love being around Zoro, even if we’re not talking… I just love Zoro.”
Zoro nearly crumples under the weight, the bar slipping from his hand for just a fraction of a second before he recovers. With a bit of effort, he set the barbell down -- gently -- and clears his throat.
“Yeah, well, I’d sure hope so. You’re stuck with me.” His hand comes up and sheepishly rubs at the back of his neck. It seemed like it was supposed to be teasing and haughty. It wasn’t.
Luffy cocks his head off to the side curiously, watching.
Huh...
Once more now.
Cold wind licks against his skin, but he doesn’t shiver. Zoro bled warmth into his skin where they’re leaned against each other keeping the night air at bay. Usopp lays sprawled out on their other side, asleep with his head in Zoro’s lap.
There’s the muffled voices of the crew elsewhere, hushed laughter. Waves rock against the ship, they move with it. Usopp breathes with it, slow and easy.
He finds that he begins to notice something in his chest. It isn’t loud, but it’s all-encompassing. It isn’t frightening, but it’s overwhelming. It isn’t sparks and explosions and butterflies. It’s a peace that’s hard to come by, a home that isn’t rooted anywhere.
“Zoro..?”
There’s a sleepy pause before he gets a response. A quiet, groggy “Mn?”
“I love you.”
It was natural reflex, like breathing.
Inhale, exhale.
He loves Zoro, he says it.
It was easy to say, so easy sometimes he didn’t even realize when he did. He’d said it a million times, over and over again. To others, to Usopp and Nami and Sanji, to Ace, to everyone. Zoro’s were just for Zoro, though.
Zoro freezes, an odd, strangled sound escaping him. Luffy glances up to look at him and Zoro snaps his head away, seeming to find absolutely Jack Diddly Nothing over on their other side very, very interesting.
He inches curiously closer. A difficult task, when Zoro is leaning away just as quickly as he can chase him.
Sure, it’s a little dim, maybe it was a trick of the light but Zoro’s face looks… red?
“Zoro… Are you--”
Zoro’s jaw tenses, he still refuses to look. Luffy pushes, climbs awkwardly into his space, onto him, invasive, crowding, smothering--
“AIY! Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow! Lu-uffy! You’re on my hair,” Usopp yelps, jolting upright, and Luffy follows… or… fall-ows, tumbling backwards.
Zoro suddenly stands now that both of them are sitting on the deck and not caging him in place. “I’m gonna go see what’s taking them so long,”
They watch, bewildered.
Usopp gives him a look when Zoro trips over his own feet -- twice -- on his way. A look that says Dude… what the fuck?
Luffy returns a strong and decisive half shrug and a look that says Iyunno?
As many times as he can.
Luffy has a theory, and hands-on research was needed to come to any further conclusion and he’s enthusiastic to investigate.
But the sea had other plans. A freak storm rolled in, a bad one, and it was all hands on deck. Then Nami spends an hour talking to him about their course. Then Zoro gets into a fight with Sanji. Then there’s a sea king. Then they have to help repair the damage caused by the sea king. And then when the storm did clear, Chopper comes to ask Zoro about the fever Luffy had mentioned to him (Oops)
They barely got a second to themselves, crammed back to back with problem after problem. While Luffy usually enjoyed action, he’d really like it if he could have a spare five minutes.
Every time he and Zoro passed eachother it got worse.
He’d open his mouth to speak, then get whisked away.
He’d try to grab Zoro’s hand, then Zoro would get called over and dart away.
He was in the cabins, Zoro was in the crow’s nest.
Zoro finally came to the cabins and he had to rush to the wheel.
Every near miss made him twitch, it made his palms itch, made him antsy. There was a caged lion in his chest pacing the walls that wanted out and he wanted to scream.
Just before he ripped off his own skin the fates relented.
Luffy finally caught sight of Zoro in a spare moment. He sat on the deck, leaned back against the mast with his bandana draped over his eyes. It reminded Luffy of when Makino’s cat would sit in the window soaking up sunshine.
Thank god he had come around just in time to disturb the peace!
It took a while of standing over him, but eventually Zoro did notice the shadow looming over him and peered up from under his bandana.
Luffy grins.
Zoro’s mouth opens like he’s about to talk, probably nothing important, when Luffy climbs into his lap and whatever he was going to say turns into a soft grunt of protest.
The lion is still pacing. His hands find Zoro’s easily and he presses their palms together with their fingers interlocked. He sways their arms back and forth, itching for an outlet. Zoro’s lips twitch in a smile, his protests long forgotten.
“Zoro,” Luffy demands, expression unusually stern despite the fact that he’s still playing with their joined hands.
A soft, almost fond sigh follows. “Aye, Captain?”
“I love you.”
The other went stiff under him. Zoro tries to turn his head away, but this close, at this angle it was entirely useless.
“I love you~”
He intently watches the color slowly bloom across Zoro’s face, from his hairline down to his neck, his chest, until his line of sight is blocked by the other’s shirt.
He looked like a child -- or maybe an Usopp -- who had gotten caught with his hand in a cookie jar.
“I love Zoro~!”
Luffy grins delightedly like he’s watching the greatest thing he’s ever seen, and Zoro concentrates very hard on dropping through the floorboards in hopes that maybe it’ll actually happen.
How can one of the strongest people alive be rendered a flustered mess by him without even trying? Red up to his ears from three little words. A simple fact of life, a simple statement of his existence stopped the demon swordsman in his tracks and turned him into a shy little school boy.
“Bastard! You’re doing that on purpose!” Zoro gritts out.
“Yep!” He laughs harder, and Zoro’s grip on his hands tighten in retaliation. Zoro probably couldn’t hurt him even if he tried, not like this, but even knowing that he’s still gentler than he needs to be (and if Luffy thinks about that for even a second, something ticklish and smushy starts in his chest, so he doesn’t).
Zoro’s head drops to his shoulder, face tucked into the crook of his neck, hiding like a shy child. The heat from his blushing cheeks bleeds through Luffy’s clothes.
“Dammit...” His warm breath fans out against his skin in an exasperated sigh. “I love you too.”